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Mechatronics in Medicine

The MIM Lab develops robotic and mechatronics surgical systems for a variety of procedures.

Head of Group

B415C Bessemer Building
South Kensington Campus

+44 (0)20 7594 7046

What we do

The Mechatronics in Medicine Laboratory develops robotic and mechatronics surgical systems for a variety of procedures including neuro, cardiovascular, orthopaedic surgeries, and colonoscopies. Examples include bio-inspired catheters that can navigate along complex paths within the brain (such as EDEN2020), soft robots to explore endoluminal anatomies (such as the colon), and virtual reality solutions to support surgeons during knee replacement surgeries.

Meet the team

Mr Ayhan Aktas
Casual - Student demonstrator - lower rate

Dr Daniel Bautista Salinas
Research Associate

Dr Kaiwen Chen
Research Associate

Mr Zejian Cui
Research Assistant

Mr Connor Daly
Research Postgraduate

Emeritus Professor Brian L Davies FREng
Emeritus Professor

Mr Zhaoyang Jacopo Hu
Research Postgraduate

Dr Hisham M Iqbal
Research Associate

Mr Alex Ranne
Research Postgraduate

Professor Ferdinando M Rodriguez y Baena
Co-Director of Hamlyn Centre, Professor of Medical Robotics

Dr Jialei Shi
Research Associate

Mr Spyridon Souipas
Casual - Other work

Ms Emilia Zari
Research Postgraduate

Citation

BibTex format

@inproceedings{Watts:2018:10.1007/978-3-319-89911-4_6,
author = {Watts, T and Secoli, R and Rodriguez, y Baena F},
doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-89911-4_6},
pages = {67--80},
publisher = {Springer},
title = {Modelling the deformation of biologically inspired flexible structures for needle steering},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89911-4_6},
year = {2018}
}

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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Recent technical advances in minimally invasive surgery have been enabled by the development of new medical instruments and technologies. To date, the vast majority of mechanisms used within a clinical context are rigid, contrasting with the compliant nature of biological tissues. The field of robotics has seen an increased interest in flexible and compliant systems, and in this paper we investigate the behaviour of deformable multi-segment structures, which take their inspiration from the ovipositor design of parasitic wood wasps. These configurable structures have been shown to steer through highly compliant substrates, potentially enabling percutaneous access to the most delicate of tissues, such as the brain. The model presented here sheds light on how the deformation of the unique structure is related to its shape, and allows comparison between different potential designs. A finite element study is used to evaluate the proposed model, which is shown to provide a good fit (root-mean-square deviation 0.2636 mm for 4-segment case). The results show that both 3-segment and 4-segment designs are able to achieve deformation in all directions, however the magnitude of deformation is more consistent in the 4-segment case.
AU  - Watts,T
AU  - Secoli,R
AU  - Rodriguez,y Baena F
DO  - 10.1007/978-3-319-89911-4_6
EP  - 80
PB  - Springer
PY  - 2018///
SN  - 2211-0984
SP  - 67
TI  - Modelling the deformation of biologically inspired flexible structures for needle steering
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89911-4_6
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/51687
ER  -

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